Looking for Newton
by IghenodProtectorOfLife
Summary: In english we don't say "I love you", we say "why don't we talk about it over dinner at my place, ok? You can finally meet Alice," which roughly translates to "please help me with the enormous alien brain that's controlling my thoughts and actions" and I think that's beautiful. Post pr2
1. Chapter 1- Herman

Herman was dreaming again.

He was drifting, in both senses of the word, whirling through a vast tunnel of pulsing orange. Light and sound passed him, above and below, though above and below no longer existed. He tried to reach for his cane to steady himself, but he had no arms. He tried to blink, but he had no eyes.

The world turned blue. There they were; strange creatures of twisted limbs and shadows. He could feel them watching him. He could feel their excitement as they pried into his mind, snuck tendrils along the channels of all his thoughts, all his careful plans. They wanted something, he could feel that too, but they didn't trust him. Were they afraid? Could he feel their fear, or was it just his own, coursing through his mind, reflected in theirs, reflected in his. _Where was Newt?_

He had come to protect Newt. He reached out, searching for a familiar voice in the sea of alien. It jumped out at him like a jack-in-the-box.

"Why don't we talk about it over dinner at my place, ok? You can finally meet Alice." The face looked like Newt's face, but it's words grated like steel over his open mind, mocking him. Something was wrong. Something in his eyes, or something that wasn't in the eyes at all._ Where was Newt?_ he wondered again, and the face that wasn't Newt's twisted into a terrible smile. The voice that wasn't Newt's began to laugh. It laughed and laughed as Herman fell. He kept falling until he woke up.

_Just a dream_, he thought to himself, as he reached for the cane leaning against the side of his bed. He squeezed the solid wood of the handle with all his strength until his pulse slowed and his shaking stopped. He sat up.

"All just a dream," he said out loud.

But of course, it wasn't. Because even back in his room, with his cane in his solid hands, the question remained.

_Where was Newt?_


	2. Chapter 2- Newt

Newt was in a dark room. Someone was yelling at him.

Well, not at him exactly, at Alice, but Alice wasn't paying attention. Alice, whose mind was primarily somewhere that was not dark and occupied by a yelling pilot, was thinking about something it didn't want Newt to know. Newt wasn't sure if he had the strength to force Alice to show him what it was planning, but he knew he didn't have the willpower to try. Resistance had never been an option with Alice. At first, Newt had simply been collecting information-memories and the like- from what seemed to be a disconnected hunk of neurons. By the time Alice began to reveal what was really going on, it was too late. Newt was hooked. He was, quite literally, an addict. As a scientist of the brain he knew exactly what was going on. He had never done heroin himself, but he understood what happened to the brain when a person did. Contact with the drug flooded the brain with chemicals. These chemicals imitated the brain's messages of pleasure. These were set off at such an extraordinary frequency that the receptors in the brain began to change. Normal, everyday things no longer felt like anything at all. It was like that with him, with Alice. And then there was the effect of the hive mind, constantly pushing on him, flooding him with the pressure to obey. Obey, and leave the thinking to the central consciousness, just like everyone else, just like the the thousands of other consciousness' that flashed through his mind every second of every day. To try and control them all at once would have been worse than trying to control a whole fleet of jaegers as just one solitary man. No, all there was to do was make room in his head and let himself be washed along by the tide.

He stared idly at the wall and tried not to think.


	3. Chapter 3- Herman

Herman arrived to work early, looking gaunt and poorly rested, which was hardly a surprise to anyone. The building was absolutely bustling with activity, as was to be expected given the apocalyptic events of the previous day. The lab, however, was quieter than usual. Technically everyone had the option of a day off, to go home and celebrate the continued existence of the world. Herman had received the message earlier in the morning. Most upper level military personnel had come in anyway, presumably to keep riding the high of the second salvation of Earth in as many decades. The lab personnel had evidently stayed home. The quiet suited Herman just fine.

Stacked haphazardly on the central table of the lab were a number of boxes that had not been there the day before. When Herman opened the first he couldn't suppress a little mutter of excitement. He lifted out half of a shiny white blaster, obviously newly constructed even with the extensive damage; Shao tech. If it was one of the blasters the drones had used to open up breaches across the Pacific Ocean only yesterday, there was nothing in the world Herman wanted in his lab more. Well, almost nothing. He shook his head just a little and turned his attention to the task at hand. Damaged weapons were dangerous, especially ones he highly suspected had a nuclear component. Leaving them lying around in cardboard boxes was almost unprecedented stupidity on the part of his superiors. He headed towards the back of the lab, looking for some more appropriate containers.

When he emerged with a cart of various airtight cases, someone else was standing at the table, examining it's contents. He looked up at the sound of the cart. It was Jake Pentacost.


End file.
